During the night of October 16 the number of penguins increased greatly, and on the morning of the 17th there was a thin sprinkling scattered over the rookery. ([Fig. 11.]) A few were in pairs or threes, but more in groups of a dozen or more, and all the birds were very phlegmatic, many of them lying on their breasts, with beaks outstretched, apparently asleep, and nearly all, as yesterday, in the hollows, though there was no wind, and away from the nesting sites. They were very quiet. Probably they were fatigued after their journey; perhaps also they were waiting the stimulation of a greater crowd before starting their breeding operations. As the guano-covered ridges, on which the old nests are, were fairly soft and the pebbles loose, they were not waiting for higher temperatures in order to get to work.
During October 17 the arrivals became gradually more frequent. They were dribbling up from the sea-ice at the north-end of the beach, and soon made a well-worn track up the ice-foot, whilst a long line of birds approaching in single file, with some gaps, extended to the horizon in a northerly direction.
During the day I noticed some penguins taking possession of old nests on the ridges. These mostly squatted in the nests without any attempt at repairing them or rearrangement of any sort. Afterwards I found that they were unmated hens waiting for mates to come to them, and that this was a very common custom among them. ([Fig. 10.]) If two occupied nests within reach of one another they would stretch out their necks and peck at each other. Their endeavour seemed to be to peck each other's tongue, and this they frequently did, but generally struck the soft parts round the margin of the bills, which often became a good deal swollen in consequence. Often also their beaks would become interlocked. They would keep up this peck-pecking hour after hour in a most relentless fashion. ([Fig. 12.]) On one occasion I saw a hen succeed in driving another off one of the old nests which she occupied. The vanquished one squatted on the ground a few yards away, with rumpled feathers and “huffy” appearance, whilst the other walked on to the nest and assumed the “ecstatic” attitude ([page 46]). Nothing but animosity could have induced this act, as thousands of old unoccupied nests lay all around.
About 9 P.M. a light snowstorm came on, and those few birds who had taken possession of nests, left them, and all now lay in the hollows, nestling into the fine drift which soon covered the ground to the extent of a few inches. A group of about a dozen penguins which arrived near the ice-foot in the morning, halted on the sea-ice without ascending the little slope leading to the rookery, and stayed there all day.
With the few exceptions I have noted above, all the birds that had arrived so far either were much fatigued, or else they realized that they had come a little too soon and were waiting for some psychological moment to arrive, for they were all strangely quiet and inactive.
Fig. 10. IN THE FOREGROUND A MATED PAIR HAVE BEGUN TO BUILD. BEHIND AND TO THE RIGHT TWO UNMATED HENS LIE IN THEIR SCOOPS
On October 18 the weather cleared and a fair number of penguins started to build their nests. The great majority however, apparently resting, still sat about. Those that built took their stones from old nests, as at present so many of these lay unoccupied. They made quite large nests, some inches high at the sides, with a comfortable hollow in the middle to sit in. The stone carrying ([Fig. 20]) was done by the male birds, the hens keeping continual guard over the nest, as otherwise the pair would have been robbed of the fruits of their labours as fast as they were acquired.
As I strolled through the rookery, most of the birds took little or no notice of me. Some, however, swore at me very savagely, and one infuriated penguin rushed at me from a distance of some ten yards, seizing the leg of my wind-proof trousers. In the morning quite a large number lay down on the sea-ice, a few yards short of the rookery, content apparently to have got so far. They lay there all day, motionless on their breasts, with their chins outstretched on the snow.